


The Rain it Raineth Every Day

by allisonlivesinwonderland



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Modern AU, Romantic Comedy, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24808600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allisonlivesinwonderland/pseuds/allisonlivesinwonderland
Summary: The summer before Hawke goes to college, Leandra hires a new gardener.  Pining, parties, and poor decisions ensue.
Relationships: Female Hawke/Merrill
Comments: 13
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Pride, lovelies! I hope you love this f/f summer romcom (my first fanfic!), but first, some content warnings:
> 
> \- People drink alcohol in this, sometimes irresponsibly.
> 
> \- Emetophobia warning for the consequences of this.
> 
> \- Finally, I am a white person, and I write about race in this, specifically in the context of Isabela and Merrill. The Dragon Age franchise is not good at talking about race and tends to not use labels, but Isabela is certainly one of the most dark-skinned characters, who is often interpreted as a person of color, and Merrill belongs to an in-game ethnic group which is systemically marginalized and violently discriminated against. The version of Hightown in this fic is based on the white upper-class suburb in which I worked as a gardener in college, and I could not in good conscience not address the very different treatment they would receive there. I researched this a lot, but I still do not and never will experience racism, so please feel free to call me out or not read it at all, depending on how much headspace you have right now. I promise this is something I will always keep learning about and working on.
> 
> I hope you enjoy! Much love to you all.

The summer before Hawke went to college, Leandra hired a new gardener.  
  
They were eating dinner at the kitchen table, just the two of them, because Bethany was at a friend’s house and Carver was eating in his room again. Dinner was leftover pizza from Hawke’s graduation party, because even though half of Kirkwall’s Hightown had showed up, Leandra had still ordered too much food.  
  
“I am devastated at Tamlen moving,” Leandra said. She was eating pizza with a knife and fork, on the good dishes, even with no one to see. It made Hawke feel like she knew her mother a little less, which was an uncomfortably heavy feeling for a pizza dinner on a Sunday night.  
  
“Oh, so he got his internship?” Hawke said. “That’s good. I always thought he liked animal science more than plants.”  
  
“I know,” Leandra sighed. “And he was kind enough to recommend one of his friends as a replacement. I interviewed her earlier, and she is unbelievably perfect. She’s studying ecology or environmental science or something, and it’s going to cost very little, because she’ll be moving into the basement apartment, so it’s all part of her room and board.”  
  
“We have a basement apartment?” Hawke said. “Maker, how big is this house?”  
  
“You would know if you spent any time in it,” Leandra said, with some asperity. “Instead of demanding an apartment as soon as you leave for college.”  
  
This did not feel like an argument worth repeating, particularly as Hawke had already won. So she dug into her pizza and said, “Tell me more about your gardener.”  
  
“She’s Dalish as well,” Leandra said. “I can’t remember her name, it’s something ethnic.”  
  
“Mrrm,” Hawke said. She wondered if it was too late to eat upstairs with Carver.  
  
“And you know, she goes to that quaint little public school you decided to attend,” Leandra said.  
  
“Mom,” Hawke said in warning.  
  
“I mean, why my alma mater Chantry College isn’t good enough for you, I’m sure I don’t understand, but if you must have it your way, I know better than to try to reason with—”  
  
Hawke picked up her pizza and went upstairs. And she wonders why I’m getting an apartment for college, she thought, sitting cross-legged in her nearly empty bedroom, bare except for the boxes she’d been living out of her entire senior year of high school.  
  
She supposed it was time to admit to herself that they wouldn’t be going home. This was home now, this crisp suburb of Hightown, with neighbors who were as cookie-cutter as the houses, as carefully maintained and immaculate as their lawns. Hawke looked at her mismatching skeleton socks and wondered, if she spent any more time in this neighborhood, if she would start looking like them, too, or if she already did.  
  
Her phone chirped with Leandra’s special ringtone. It read, Don’t forget! Tomorrow morning, you’re helping me spruce up the apartment before Merrill moves in!  
  
Merrill. At least Leandra had remembered her name.  
  
It was going to be weird with someone else living in the house. Weird, but maybe good. Four people wasn’t very many for however many square feet they had, and it felt increasingly like all that space was laying bare all their missing pieces. Bethany was at her friends’ house all the time, Carver was in his room, Leandra was chatting louder and louder, having her walking group over for tea, throwing Hawke a graduation party, all to hide that, when someone wasn’t talking, the house was very quiet. And would be even quieter when she moved out, Hawke thought with a twinge. But she couldn’t stay.  
  
At least the pizza was good. She’d wait until Leandra went to bed to bring the dish down.

* * *

The mailman dropped off Kirkwall U’s course catalogue over breakfast the next morning. Hawke was so excited to read it she didn’t even hear Leandra tutting over her toast, and all thoughts of the new gardener went clean out of her mind. She left Leandra to tidy up the apartment on her own and called Isabela as soon as her bedroom door closed behind her.  
  
“Hawke, I love you, but what did I say about calling before noon,” Isabela said, voice muffled.  
  
“I know, sorry, I got excited,” Hawke said. “Kirkwall U sent me the course catalogue!”  
  
“Aren’t you going to be taking gen eds the first year,” Isabela mumbled. Hawke thought she was falling back asleep.  
  
“Yes!” Hawke said. “But now I get to decide which gen eds to pick!”  
  
“You’re ridiculous,” Bela said, but Hawke knew her well enough to detect the affection in her voice. “Tell me what classes you’re excited about.”  
  
And she listened while Hawke nattered on about how she could take computer science instead of a math class, and they cross-listed graphic design between journalism and studio art, and what was information science, and would Isabela take it with her? She was sure Isabela had fallen back asleep, but Kirkwall U had fourteen libraries and students could work in research labs, and Hawke urgently needed someone to know this.  
  
“Check your messages,” Isabela said, and Hawke, confused, put her on speaker in time to pull up the photos of empty rooms. It wasn’t magazine-gorgeous the way Leandra would have liked, but Hawke pictured it with a sofa, a TV, a kitchen table and a bookshelf, and it was exactly what she had dreamed of.  
  
“It’s ready?” she said, unable to hide the tremble in her voice.  
  
“The bachelorette pad,” Isabela confirmed. “We can sign the lease next week. Rent is five hundred dollars each a month.”  
  
“That’s more than we talked about,” Hawke said. “Is that all right for you?”  
  
“I can manage it,” Isabela said. “I’m assuming you’re all right with it too, heiress?”  
  
Hawke ducked her head at that, even though Isabela couldn’t see.  
  
“Yeah,” she said at last. “Still getting used to it.”  
  
“I can imagine,” Isabela said. “Lowtown to Hightown overnight. We were all surprised.”  
  
“Well, Mom had good lawyers,” Hawke said evasively. She didn’t know how much she wanted to talk about all the ways their life had changed in the last few years. Losing Dad, watching Leandra take second and third jobs, smiling less and sitting up alone at night more. Then Mom’s lawyers proving that she had been cheated out of an inheritance beyond their wildest dreams. Having to move out of the apartment in Lowtown where Hawke had grown up, where Isabela had been a five minute walk away her entire childhood. Moving— here, of all places, instead.  
  
It was part of the reason she had been so adamant on finishing the year in her old high school, about going to Kirkwall U to study un-stylish computer science the way she had wanted to since eighth grade. She felt like she had to prove she was the same person she had been back in that apartment, in a life that felt more like a dream with each passing day.  
  
“Hey, what are you doing this afternoon?” she said abruptly, hand tightening on the phone.  
  
“I have a Tinder date that, let me tell you, I would not mind canceling,” Isabela said.  
  
“Come over here instead,” Hawke said. “The pool guy said the chlorine levels are good. We can swim, or sunbathe.”  
  
“Oh my God!” Isabela squealed, and Hawke laughed and winced away from the phone at the same time. “We can recreate our childhoods at the summer pool, only bougie this time! Will your mom let us drink?”  
  
“No,” Hawke said apologetically. “You know how she feels about alcohol.”  
  
“It’s cool, I’ll bring my own,” Isabela said. “See you then, love!”  
  
Hawke hoped she was joking.  
  
She lay on her bed another minute, phone clutched to her chest, smiling at the ceiling. It was finally happening. She and Isabela were going to have parties in their little apartment, and study in the library, and date people, and make friends. It was going to be perfect.  
  
The waft of hope from that was enough for her to crack open one of her boxes, pull out a Panic! At the Disco poster, and tack it up on the wall above her bed. It wasn’t worth unpacking, since she’d be moving in with Isabela soon enough. But she still liked the idea of that poster against her wall.  
  
Then she had to go digging through the boxes again, because she had no idea where she’d packed her swimsuit.

* * *

“Seriously, this is amazing,” Isabela said. “I’ve never had a friend with a pool before. I could get used to you living in Hightown.”  
  
They were laying out by the pool in their swimsuits. The water was still too crisp from the cool nights for swimming, but tanning was such a familiar pastime. It took Hawke back to every summer they’d spent together at the public pool. Except with no lifeguards, no overflowing trash, no crowded chatter. Just them. As predicted, Leandra had not offered them alcohol, but she had poured fruit juice in their martini glasses, so that was fun.  
  
“I’m still getting used to it,” Hawke admitted. “Do you remember cleaning pools in Hightown one summer so we would have enough money to see Imagine Dragons? And—”  
  
“That one lady accidentally gave us real strawberry daiquiris instead of virgin ones, because she was so busy looking down her nose at us for doing manual labor that she confused the glasses?” Isabela snorted. “I think that was the first time either of us was drunk.”  
  
“And the last, for me,” Hawke said with feeling. “Unless you forget how sick it made us?”  
  
“Excuse me, made you,” Isabela said. “You know, that might have been in this neighborhood. Maybe it was these very bushes you threw up in.” She settled back on her pool chair. “But honestly, it’s still so weird visiting here. I can tell the neighbors think I’m staff.”  
  
“They’re bitches,” Hawke said. It was something they had talked about before. “I’m sorry about that.”  
  
“Who knew we’d both be here, though?” Isabela said. “Drinking fruit juice by your own pool in Hightown, getting ready to move into our own apartment for college?” She stared meditatively into her drink. “So why do I still feel like the pool girl?”  
  
Isabela was smarter than just about anyone in this neighborhood. She was more driven, more resourceful, more articulate; just this summer, she had beaten all their prep-school children for an internship with the mayor. There would be history books about her when this neighborhood was only a footnote in a city archive. It filled Hawke with rage, and more than that, horror, every time the neighbors sniffed at Isabela, or lowered their sunglasses and made sure she saw them watching. How threatening it was. How much it made her worry. Hawke may journal her angst twice-daily about living here, but the neighbors didn’t look at her like that, and she knew why. It made her want to burn the neighborhood down. It wasn’t worth its pretty existence with a cost like that.  
  
“It’ll be better in college,” she said, even though there were plenty of reasons to worry about that not being true. “Or when you become mayor, you can cut their water or something.”  
  
Isabela snorted. “Now, Hawke, you know I would never use my powers for evil,” she said, eyes dancing.  
  
And they lay in the quiet for a while, watching the plants sway in the breeze, the bright glitter of water. Hawke barely noticed the sounds of a car pulling up in the driveway. A few minutes later, Leandra emerged from the side gate, dressed in the same gardening clothes she’d worn when she volunteered in the community garden back in Lowtown, desperate for some time with something green. She waved to them both, and looked over her shoulder to say something too muffled to hear to someone out of sight.  
  
“Who’s that?” Isabela said, craning her neck to see. “Don’t tell me Leandra finally hired a new gardener.”  
  
“Yep,” Hawke said. “Her name’s Merrill. She goes to Kirkwall U, actually, so we can ask her about it when she’s settled in.”  
  
“So she’s taking the basement apartment, then?” Isabela asked, and Maker, how did everyone know about that except Hawke?  
  
Leandra gestured to the rest of the garden, and the new gardener stepped out from the shade.  
  
Hawke blinked, hard.  
  
“Well, hot damn,” Isabela said, taking off her sunglasses. “Do you see what I’m seeing?”  
  
“Shh!” Hawke said. “We’re being creepy!”  
  
Leandra’s new gardener was slim and leggy, dressed sensibly for gardening in boyfriend jeans and a long-sleeved cotton shirt. The handles of her shears and spade poked out from her apron, and she was smiling at something Leandra said, then responding animatedly. Leandra pointed at the tomatoes, where she had been complaining about caterpillars for as long as they had lived there, and Merrill dropped instantly to her knees, gently brushing the leaves with her gloved hands. It was a surprisingly arresting gesture, how gently and surely she turned over the leaves.  
  
“Well, damn,” Isabela said again. “The new gardener’s hot.”  
  
Hawke dropped her head into her hands. “Oh my God,” she said into her hands. “Oh my God.”  
  
“She’s wearing flannel!” Isabela said gleefully. She was nudging Hawke, which Hawke was trying to ignore. “Green flannel, Hawke. Wait! I have to check something.” And she was gone in a flash of towel, Maker knew where. Leaving Hawke to try to not creepily stare across the yard, at which she clearly didn’t succeed. The wind changed directions, just enough for her to hear Merrill giggling at something Leandra said. She had an adorable giggle, Hawke thought in despair. She wanted to make her giggle.  
  
“I was right,” Isabela said, sliding back into her chair. “Her car has a bisexual sticker on it.”  
  
“Oh,” Hawke said. Supportive. She could do this. “So, you’re interested in her?”  
  
“Oh, for the love of— no!” Isabela said. “I wanted to check because she’s completely your type, and I haven’t seen your eyes bulge like that since Ineria made you realize you were a lesbian at the seventh grade formal.” She squinted across the yard. “You know, she even looks a bit like—”  
  
“Stop!” Hawke said. “Stop right there, I beg you!”  
  
Isabela cackled. “Oh my God, you do like her! And she’s going to be here gardening and living in your house for the rest of the summer! Oh my, I hope nothing untoward happens.”  
  
“Isabela, stop, she can probably hear you,” Hawke said, flapping her hands ineffectually. “She works for my mom! I would be such a creep if I pulled anything.”  
  
“This could be good for you,” Isabela said. “I can tell. I mean, when’s the last time you got some, you know? Do you even use the Tinder I set up for you?”  
  
“Isabela,” Hawke said, covering her face with her hands. “Nothing’s going to happen. I haven’t even met her yet.”  
  
“Oh, I can tell we’re going to spend a lot of time at the pool this summer,” Isabela said.


	2. Chapter 2

And Isabela was right: the pool was a very good investment. But that, Hawke told herself, as she made it through her second bottle of sunscreen in as many weeks, was entirely due to the unprecedented good weather Kirkwall was enjoying that summer. It had nothing to do with Merrill showing up every day in her gardening clothes, pruning, digging up volunteer plants, watering the herb garden. Bending over in her boyfriend jeans— anyway, it had absolutely nothing to do with that. That was simply a distraction from tanning. A tempting, leggy, giggling, gardening distraction.  
  
She still hadn’t met Merrill, not really. They’d had a handful of scattered interactions, like when Merrill had asked her to turn off the hose, or when they had bumped into each other at the garden gate. Or that truly memorable time when Hawke had been laying out by herself, and Merrill had been replanting the daylilies. And Merrill had looked up and said, “You’re eager to get a tan, aren’t you.” And Hawke had intelligently replied, “Mrrmph.”  
  
So, yeah. It was going great. And any early wrinkles she got from all this sun would be worth it.  
  
She found that she managed to seem sun-fixated but otherwise normal whenever she encountered Merrill in the garden. Then she could retreat into the house and revert to her sleep-deprived, gamer, baby computer-scientist gremlin. So it was dismaying when she wandered down to dinner one night, hoodie up and headphones in, to see Merrill sitting next to Leandra, chatting amiably.  
  
“Mrrm!” Hawke said, which seemed to be her new catch phrase. “Mom! Hi!”  
  
“Hello, darling,” Leandra said, eyes flitting meaningfully toward Hawke’s plaid pajama pants and— she wanted to die— slippers with derpy cat faces. “What did I say about dressing for dinner?”  
  
“I’m dressed!” Hawke said wildly, in case this was going to take a sharp left turn into nightmare and she was actually naked.  
  
Merrill giggled. Hawke wanted the floor to open up beneath her.  
  
“Haven’t you been wearing those pj pants all week?” Leandra said, as Hawke took her place between Carver and Bethany. “Don’t I buy you real pants? Why do you insist on wearing the same pair?”  
  
“I just wash them a lot,” Hawke said, floundering.  
  
“No, you don’t,” Bethany said, from where she sat examining her split ends. “Do you even know how our washing machine works?”  
  
I will kill you, Hawke tried to communicate to Bethany with her eyes.  
  
“No fighting in front of our guest,” Leandra said primly. “Children, meet Merrill Sabrae, the new tenant and gardener. She cooked the side tonight! It’s, er… eggplant something. Merrill, these are my children, Carver, Bethany, and Marian.”  
  
“Marian?” Merrill said in surprise. “Sorry, I thought your name was— something else.”  
  
“It’s Hawke,” Hawke said, and her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “Yeah, no big deal, I just go by Hawke.”  
  
“As though I didn’t give you a perfectly lovely name,” Leandra said, with a tinkling laugh. “Marian, after my girlhood governess.”  
  
“I thought you named her after the dog,” Bethany said, missing Hawke’s death-glare. “Isn’t that how Dad used to tell the story?”  
  
“Isn’t Hawke also your last name?” Merrill said. Was she always this wide-eyed, Hawke thought? Was it just really confusing?  
  
“It’s from her emo phase,” Carver said. “She thought it sounded metal.”  
  
“Wait, are we pretending she isn’t still going through her emo phase?” Bethany said. “Because I think it might just be her personality at this point.”  
  
“I am not—” Hawke started, and gave up. “It’s not a phase!”  
  
“All of those beautiful garden dresses I bought her, but no, she would rather wear that ratty black hoodie and ripped jeans, and those ghastly boots,” Leandra said, picking at her food like a bird.  
  
“Ha!” Bethany said. “You and Bela are probably going to paint the walls of your apartment black.”  
  
“And don’t even get me started on—” Leandra started, and Hawke’s hand tightened on her fork.  
  
“Is the eggplant undercooked?” Carver said, and Hawke tossed him a grateful look.  
  
“Sorry!” Merrill said. “I can just stick it back in for another minute.”  
  
For the first time ever, Hawke was glad Leandra hadn’t invited Isabela to family dinner night, because there was no way she could have passed on an opening like that.  
  
“No, it’s perfect!” she said, louder than she meant to. The table went silent. “Er— sorry. Let’s all just enjoy our food.”  
  
Dinner was pretty quiet after that.

* * *

  


It was not a display calculated to win Merrill’s affection. Hawke needed a swift, nay, meteoric recovery from that family dinner. She would have plotted it with Isabela, but Isabela’s internship with the mayor was picking up; when she was able to to come sunbathing, she was tired and often as not had manila folders of meeting minutes and reports to go over. There was a lot to running a town, Hawke thought, and Isabela wasn’t getting to do all the parts she liked best, like making decisions and bullying people into abiding by them. Instead she was still learning everyone’s coffee orders.  
  
So there were a lot of solitary hours by the poolside, listening to podcasts on her phone, squinting at e-books on Bethany’s tablet, slowly losing her trademark gothic paleness. You could actually tell one of her parents wasn’t Fereldan now, she thought, when she saw herself in the mirror.  
  
She could tell her new routine puzzled Leandra. But eventually Leandra bought her stronger SPF sunscreen and lent her her glare-proof Kindle, saying if she was going to be out in the sun she might as well not end up bored and wrinkled, which was nice.  
  
If her plan was to never talk to Merrill but to read an unexpected amount that summer, it was going great.  
  
Luckily, the universe intervened while Hawke was stalling. She was sitting out by the pool, unexpectedly lost in a book, when she heard a muffled swear word. Looking up, she saw Merrill struggling with an over-full bin of yard waste, trying to open the gate at the same time.  
  
Hawke was on her feet and opening the gate before her massive embarrassing crush could catch up.  
  
“Careful!” she said, putting out one hand to steady the load. “Here, if you scoot your hand over, I can grab this side.”  
  
“Oh— I can’t ask you to help,” Merrill said, out of breath. “It’s my job, and you were reading.”  
  
“Don’t be silly,” Hawke said. “I live here too, and if you weren’t here, Mom would make me help in the garden, so honestly, you’re doing me a favor.” Together, they maneuvered the bin to the road, where it would be picked up later as part of the enhanced recycling program Isabela spent all her time on. “Who knew plants could be so heavy?”  
  
“It’s because of the high water content,” Merrill said. She wiped her face with the back of her glove, leaving a smear of dust on her forehead that Hawke did not have the heart to tell her about.  
  
“What was it from, anyway?” she said.  
  
“Pruning,” Merrill said. “Your irises bloomed so lovely and late this year, and since they’re perennial, I wanted to make sure they’re just as good next year. I’ll probably take a bit more off before I’m done, but I wanted to get the stalks that had already flowered clear.”  
  
“That’s so cool,” Hawke said, who had not followed even half of that. “You must know a lot about gardening.”  
  
“I really like it,” Merrill said simply. “And I’m lucky because Leandra knows even more than I do, and she’s a really good teacher.”  
  
Hawke tried to visualize Leandra teaching someone anything, and her brain tossed up a 404 error. But she guessed Merrill knew what she was talking about.  
  
“And you study, ecology, right?” she said. “I think Mom mentioned that. How did you get into that? I guess being Dalish helped— ugh,” she said, clapping her hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry, that was so weird and rude of me.”  
  
“It’s okay,” Merrill said, but Hawke could tell she was embarrassed, and she wanted to kick herself. “I get that a lot, and it is a bit of a stereotype, the Dalish in touch with nature, or whatever. And it’s sort of true, obliquely, I guess. I definitely grew up around a lot of nature, which I guess sparked my early interest in it. And it definitely made me aware of the environmental and political threats to indigenous plant-life, which is sort of my passion.”  
  
“Still,” Hawke said, and then didn’t know what else to say. “Still, that’s so cool. And it’s cool that you study it at Kirk U. Er— that’s where I’m going. I start in the fall.”  
  
“I know,” Merrill said. She was smiling again. “Your mom told me.”  
  
“Oh, yeah, I guess she would,” Hawke said, flustered. “She didn’t want me to go there— not that it’s a bad school! It’s definitely not, I mean, I’m going there… She just wanted me to go to a private school— er, her private school.”  
  
“She didn’t mention that part,” Merrill said politely. “She just said that you want to study computer science, you’re really good at school, and she’s really proud of you.”  
  
“Lol,” Hawke said, which was embarrassing just a split second after she said it. “Sure.”  
  
“She did!” Merrill insisted. “She thinks the absolute world of you. Once I helped her pull up her e-mail, she showed me a program you made for digitizing and sorting old family photos. It was really neat.”  
  
Hawke knew what program she meant. It had been her senior project, a gift for her mom to remember all the ups and downs of their life. From the stunning, brightly colored photos of Leandra as a young woman, in long white dresses on emerald lawns, to the long thin years of her marriage, and the thinner years of her widowhood. Hawke felt a twinge at the contrast, at how those faded and sorted pictures were the proof that they had not always lived in this house, that their lives had changed in the interim and that those changes mattered. She had mowed lawns in this neighborhood, and accepted their petty cash and thanks. Sometimes she worried it made the neighbors look at her differently. Sometimes she worried more that it didn’t.  
  
“So, you saw all my baby pictures, then?” she said, to turn her mind away.  
  
Merrill grinned crookedly at her. “Every last one,” she said. “You were such an adorable baby. And the absolute spitting image of your dad.”  
  
It was true. Hawke wondered when that was going to start feeling less like holding a naked blade.  
  
“Ah, now you’ve stopped smiling,” Merrill said, a little worriedly. “Quick, think of something nice.”  
  
Well, no problems there. Not with this smiling and earnest gardener before her, the sleeve of her long flannel sliding off the blade of her narrow shoulder.  
  
“So you live here now,” Hawke said. “Do you know how long you’ll be staying?”  
  
“Well, my lease is for a year,” Merrill said, “but I’m hoping to stay here until I graduate, if it all works out. It’s such a good location— I can take the bus to class, so I don’t have to pay for a parking pass— and there’s the garden, and the reasonable rent. It’s so reasonable that between that, and the parking pass, and the gardening, I could quit my third job.”  
  
Even when they had lived in the apartment, Hawke had not had to take more than one job. She tried to think about going to class and going to work three times over, and couldn’t.  
  
“I’m glad,” she said. “I’m really, really glad. We’re so excited to have you living here. Especially Mom, since I’m moving out soon.”  
  
“Oh, are you?” Merrill said. “That’s too bad. It would have been nice to have more girls around.”  
  
“Mrrm,” Hawke managed. She cleared her throat. “But hopefully I’ll see you around campus, and stuff? You can show me all the cool hang-outs.” Cool hang-outs? The pool was only fifty feet away. There was still time to drown herself.  
  
“Ha, I don’t know about that,” Merrill said. “I haven’t been very social on campus, between balancing work and class. I mean, it’s my junior year and I still haven’t been to a party!”  
  
Hawke thought about this girl sitting in libraries, commuting to work, finishing homework on the bus and not attending parties.  
  
Isabela would have laughed, but it had taken until that conversation for Hawke to realize something. She wanted to be friends with Merrill. She was still captivated by the collarbones that peeked out from the neck of her tank top, and she had spent too much time at dinner watching her eat to pretend she wasn’t interested in other ways as well. But she also wanted to be Merrill’s friend. Either. Both.  
  
“Well,” she said, “you should come to my party. That I’m throwing this weekend.”  
  
Merrill raised her brows, as Hawke screamed in the silence of her own mind.  
  
“You’re throwing a party this weekend?” she said. “What’s the occasion?”  
  
“No occasion!” Hawke said. “The new pool! That’s the occasion! It’s just going to be a tasteful pool party with some interesting people, and, I don’t know, alcohol and stuff.” And how she was going to swing that, she would contemplate later.  
  
“A pool party?” Merrill said. “That sounds wonderful! I must say, I’ve been dying to try out your pool, but I wasn’t sure if I could.”  
  
“You can,” Hawke said, heart breaking a little. She knew Leandra wouldn’t mind.  
  
“So what day is it?” Merrill said.  
  
“Tomorrow!” Hawke said, and could have slapped herself. “Yeah, it’s tomorrow night. As in, twenty-four hours from now.”  
  
“Sounds great,” Merrill said. “I’ll be there.”  
  
She hefted the empty yard waste bin on her hip, smiled at Hawke, and walked back into the garden. Leaving Hawke wondering how she was going to plan a party in twenty-four hours.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for challenged racism.

The Creator must have smiled upon Hawke’s wooing plans, because Leandra was gone that weekend on a wellness retreat with some of the neighbors, a fact that Hawke had purged from her memory but was saving her ass now.  
  
Which left her with the only slightly less insurmountable task of planning a beautiful and effortless party in twenty-four hours.  
  
Hawke could have called Isabela. No, she should have called Isabela, because Isabela could have pulled a party out of thin air in twenty-four minutes, let alone twenty-four hours. The thing was, she knew exactly what Isabela would say, could hear it in her voice without even needing to think: “Babe, if you like this girl, don’t make up a random party as an excuse to hang out with her. Be honest and ask her out like a normal person. Don’t lurk like a creep.”  
  
Good advice, but Hawke had never willingly chosen to be emotionally vulnerable in her life and did not plan on starting now. And there was another reason she didn’t want to bother Isabela with this: Isabela’s internship was heating up, and she had never seen her this stressed. Whatever she saw, however she was treated every day in the mayor’s office, Hawke could tell it was effecting her. She sat through the entirety of Mean Girls without making a single comment about which Plastic was the most iconic. It wasn’t like her, and Hawke didn’t know how to help. The least she could do, surely, was to not bother her with this pool party. Or so she kept telling herself.  
  
If she couldn’t have Isabela, though, she needed other allies.  
  
It wasn’t hard to get Bethany and Carver in the same room if you knew the right trick. Hawke used the cheapest way, which was heating up two bags of pizza rolls at once.  
  
“Oi,” Carver said, coming in from the living room, “are you going to eat all those?”  
  
“Yeah, can I take some upstairs?” Bethany asked.  
  
“They’re all yours,” Hawke said, “as long as you let me talk to you while you eat them.”  
  
“Ugh,” Carver said, but the terms must have been acceptable, because they both started eating. That didn’t buy her much time, as Carver piled half the first bag onto his plate, but this wouldn’t take long.  
  
“I’m throwing a party tomorrow,” Hawke said.  
  
“What’s the occasion?” Bethany asked. “Is there a new Harry Potter movie or something?”  
  
“No,” Hawke said. “J K Rowling is a TERF and I would never support her.”  
  
“Has the Percy Jackson TV series come out?” Carver said.  
  
“No, that’s not going to be for ages, and I’ll make sure you know when it does,” Hawke said. “No, I’m throwing a pool party. With, like, alcohol and stuff, and— oh, please, you can stop laughing,” she said, as Bethany almost choked on a pizza roll.  
  
“Sorry,” Bethany said. “But you have to admit, you? Throwing a party, with alcohol? And what, are there going to be lots of pretty, pretty boys— sorry, girls?”  
  
“Excuse me!” Hawke said. “Everyone knows I’m great with alcohol! Remember that time the pool lady gave me and Isabela strawberry daiquiris?”  
  
“Hawke,” Bethany said. “That was, like, five years ago. Isn’t that the last time you were drunk?”  
  
“I don’t think— you know what, whatever,” Hawke said. She took a deep breath. The pizza rolls were half gone now, and she needed to be sure she got her eight dollars’ worth out of this. “I admit perhaps I’m not the most experienced with alcohol and parties and stuff. But Beth, I know you don’t actually have choir rehearsal after school, so I’m assuming you’ve been using that as an excuse to get up to all sorts of mischief. Invite some cool people to my party, procure some alcohol, and I won’t tell Mom.”  
  
Bethany was quiet for a moment. “Fine,” she said. It was probably the best Hawke was going to get. “But I hope you like White Claw.”  
  
“What’s— you know what, never mind,” Hawke said. “Carver, I don’t really have a task for you, since you don’t seem like someone who gets invited to many parties, no offense.”  
  
“Excuse me!” Carver said. “Offense taken!”  
  
“So really, the only thing you need to do is not tell Mom.”  
  
“How do you expect to throw a huge party and not have Mom find out?” Carver said.  
  
“It’s not going to be a huge party,” Hawke said, stressed. “It’s going to be a tasteful poolside hangout with alcohol so Merr— so I look cool. We’ll stay outside and won’t even need to worry about cleaning the house.”  
  
“You know, Mom would probably be fine with it if you just asked,” Bethany said.  
  
And the worst part was, Hawke knew she was probably right. But she also knew that Mom would ask questions about why she wanted to throw a party now, and Mom knew her better than anyone in the world except Isabela. If she started asking questions, it wouldn’t be long before she connected it with the new gardener. And Hawke had the most horrible foreboding that if Leandra knew she liked Merrill, she would ship them, a lot. It was past endurance.  
  
“And one more thing,” Hawke said, “and this is the important part. Whatever you do, don’t tell Isabela.”  
  
“What?” Carver said. “I thought you two were inseparable.”  
  
Bethany gasped. “Is it a surprise party for her birthday? I thought that was in winter.”  
  
“It is her half birthday,” Hawke said, with as much gravity as possible. “We’ve decided to celebrate it instead this year, because we’re— um— going to college, and might be too busy to celebrate it then.”  
  
“Isn’t it around Christmas, though?” Bethany said. “Why would you be busy then?”  
  
“Look, do you want to day-drink when Mom’s gone or not?” Hawke said. And that settled that. The pizza rolls were gone, her siblings scurried back to their rooms like rats when the lights turned on, and, with only one pizza pick-up tomorrow and maybe a grocery run in the morning for fun snacks, Hawke thought this party was good to go.  
  


* * *

  


Of course, it was harder than that. Hawke’s luck with the Maker must have run out, because the next day— after an entire season of clear days and cool breezes— dawned blisteringly still and hot, so hot that Hawke was interrupted on her way out to the car by Carver actually standing in the driveway, ready to crack an egg and watch it cook.  
  
“Gross,” she said. “If you do that, you have to clean it up.”  
  
“You’re still planning to hold your party outside?” he said doubtfully.  
  
“Yes,” she said, more decisively than she felt. “It’ll probably cool off toward evening. And besides, we’ll all be in the pool, so we won’t even notice.”  
  
“It looks like it might storm later,” Carver said doubtfully, looking at the grey line of the horizon.  
  
“No, it won’t!” Hawke said, as though the Maker might hear her cheerful voice and change their mind. “Besides, we cannot have a party inside, or Mom will definitely notice. So it may be a little warm, yes, but we’ll still have a good time, and it’s not like there’s going to be that many— Merrill!” she said, seeing a familiar figure at the garden gate. “Wait, I need to talk to—”  
  
She had to scramble to catch up to Merrill in the garden, where she was looking doubtfully at the leaves of the tomato plants.  
  
“Good morning, Hawke,” she said in her bird-like voice. “I’m a bit worried about the tomatoes. They look a bit dry, but we’re in for rain later.”  
  
“Oh, I don’t know about that!” Hawke said. “Anyway, I just wanted to remind you that the pool party is later. It’ll just be a few people, hanging out and stuff. I would love for you to come.”  
  
“I’d forgotten about that!” Merrill said. “Yes, I’ll definitely come. I hope it doesn’t get rained out.”  
  
“It won’t!” Hawke said, starting to get genuinely frazzled. “Anyway, I have to go to the store to get some snacks, but I’ll see you later, at the party.”  
  
She very nearly made it out of the driveway before she was interrupted this time. Someone was waving at her from the street, the sort of crisply pressed and tousled-hair young man that she had spent enough years as a lesbian to know to distrust, from his white sperry’s to his salmon-colored shorts. As she walked closer, she thought she recognized him as one of the neighbors, but she wasn’t sure which one— they did tend to run together.  
  
“Sup, Marian!”  
  
“It’s Hawke,” she said. “Who are you?”  
  
“That’s cool,” he said, tossing his hair. “Like the bird.”  
  
“Yeah,” she said. “Who are you?”  
  
“Roderick, from down the street,” he said. “Beth told me about the party tonight. I just want to say it sounds dope, and I will totally be there. If my parents go to sleep early enough, I can bring some of their booze over.”  
  
“I think we’re good,” she said politely. “Bethy’s taking care of that.” She jangled her keys in her hand, in case that got the message across. But she suspected she could have brained him with a hatchet before he even began to suspect that she was less than riveted in his conversation.  
  
“And if you want to have a really good party,” and he grinned and nudged her arm in a way she just hated, like she was being briefly invited into something she wanted no part of, “I bet you can ask your new gardener, or whatever. She’s Dalish, right?”  
  
On a hot day, Hawke went cold.  
  
“And what do you mean by that?” she said, as expressionlessly as she could.  
  
“Well, you know,” he said, and she kept staring at him until he realized that no, she did not. “It’s like, I hear they’re always, like, up for pretty wild stuff. And she’s even a gardener, so she, like, grows stuff. And she works for you, so I bet you could ask—”  
  
“I’m going to stop you right there,” Hawke said. “You’re being a really weird creep right now. I have no idea why you’re saying any of this, and it’s not okay.”  
  
“Ugh, don’t tell me you’re all PC about it,” he said. “Beth’s not. It’s cool.”  
  
“I don’t know how you know my sister, and I don’t really think you’re telling the truth,” Hawke said. “If she does think stuff like that’s okay, then that’s a talk the two of us will have to have. Because it’s not.”  
  
“Look, it was just a joke,” he said. “Don’t take it personally.”  
  
“It wasn’t funny,” Hawke said. “And I don’t think you meant it as a joke until I didn’t laugh. But if that’s your type of humor, then don’t come to my party.”  
  
“Are you serious?” he said. She watched his hands open and close.  
  
“Yeah,” Hawke said. “I am.”  
  
He didn’t walk away. She was starting to feel nervous when the car chirped behind her.  
  
“You ready to head out, Hawke?” Carver said in an even voice.  
  
“Yeah,” she said, almost trembling. She heard Roderick say something that sounded like bitch beneath his breath and waited until he was walking away before she slid into the passenger seat next to Carver, and they pulled out of the driveway.  
  
They drove in silence for a bit. One light, two. The gleam of the grocery store in the distance.  
  
“Thanks,” Hawke said.  
  
“It’s okay,” Carver said. “Well, he’s not. But just so you know, he was lying about Bethy. She can’t stand him. Told him to take a hike ages ago.”  
  
Well, that was a weight off her mind. And it was weirdly nice walking into the freezing air of the grocery shop with Carver, to argue over the best brand of guacamole and make him awkwardly carry the watermelon the whole time because they hadn’t thought to get a cart. Soon, laden with chips, dips, and sodas, they were driving back.  
  
“Starting to look a bit grey,” Carver said conversationally.  
  
“Yeah, I know,” Hawke said tightly. “Look, can you bring all this stuff inside? I have to run get the pizzas.”  
  
She was running late and feeling increasingly frazzled, and even she could no longer pretend to be unthreatened by the coffin-like seal of dark grey clouds rolling over them. It’s okay, she told herself, driving a little faster with two hot pizzas in the backseat. And the neighbors had started street-parking again, so she had to hit the break and drive through the neighborhood at a crawl.  
  
Until she got to her driveway, and it was full. She had to pull into a street spot, as the first few drops of rain started to weep from the sky.  
  
“What the—” Quickly, she grabbed the pizzas and slid out of the car. Was Mom renovating part of the house again? Were these contractors?  
  
Her hands were full with the pizzas, so she hit the doorbell with her elbow.  
  
She was opening her mouth to ask Bethany about it when the door opened, and it was a stranger.  
  
“Ah, lit, pizza!” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent some time trying to find a Dragon Age II character whose name would be most appropriate for wearing salmon-colored shorts and sperry's. Luckily the game blessed us with people named Roderick, Quentin, and Donnic, so I was spoiled for choice.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for alcohol, emetophobia, and challenged slut-shaming. I also have some pretty un-generous takes on Anders and Sebastian; know that it's all meant in good fun.

“Listen,” the stranger said, as she stood there speechlessly holding two boxes of pizza, “I don’t know who the homeowner is, so I’m going to assume you’ve already been paid and tipped.”  
  
_“I’m_ the homeowner!” Hawke cried. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my house?”  
  
He stood blinking at her in the doorway, so she elbowed past him into the crowded foyer.   
  
Her house was full of people. Her house was full of teenagers around Bethy and Carver’s age. Wearing their shoes inside, lounging on Leandra’s crisp white sofas, dancing on the original slate floors. Hawke did not know a single one of them.  
  
“Just two boxes?” the random dude next to her said. “We’re going to need a lot more than that.”  
  
“Order it yourself,” she said irritably, then saw a group of people Bethany’s age, in their finest rave clothes, walking on Leandra’s antique carpet in heels. “ _No shoes in the house!_ ” she barked, barely recognizing herself.  
  
She took a shuddering breath, watching as they slowly left their shoes by the door.  
  
“You,” she said to the random dude, “take these pizzas and put them in the kitchen. Don’t eat either of them. And— who are you, anyway?”  
  
“I’m Anders,” he said, sulking. “Bethany’s my classmate. Are you her aunt or something?”  
  
“ _No_ ,” she said. “And what the hell are you doing here today, Anders?”  
  
He half-shrugged uncomfortably. “Bethany told everyone she was having a party, and we know she moved to this bougie neighborhood, so a lot of us came. The more the merrier, she said.”  
  
“Oh, did she,” Hawke said. “Put these in the kitchen, Anders, then clear out. Party’s over.”  
  
“But it’s raining!” he said. “People are more likely to have car accidents in the rain, especially because of poor city maintenance in less affluent areas.”  
  
“You are barreling toward an accident right here if you don’t clear out!” Hawke said.  
  
“Not that I would expect someone in this neighborhood to care,” he said, glowering back at her. “Besides, everyone’s been drinking, and no one can use their credit cards to Uber home or their parents will know they were here. Try to fit through your rich-girl head that the public transportation of this city lacks sufficient infrastructure for its working-class members.”  
  
Oh, Maker, he was like the irritating knock-off version of Isabela.  
  
She needed to calm down, fast. And Maker, their air conditioning was not good enough to deal with the hot day and this number of people. And she was thirsty.  
  
“Here, give me that,” she said, and confiscated Anders’s unopened drink. “You’re too young for it, anyway.”  
  
“So are you!” he said as she downed it. Whatever was in the can stank of artificial fruit, and the bubbles stung her throat, but she couldn’t complain too much when it was so cold.  
  
Anders was staring at her, wide-eyed, when she came up for air. “You might want to slow down on those,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.  
  
“Maybe I have great tolerance,” she said snarkily.  
  
“No offense, because we have never met before, but I really don’t think you do.”  
  
Of course it was at that moment her phone rang. Cursing beneath her breath, she answered, “Hello?”  
  
It was Isabela. “Babe, you’ll never believe what happened. So, you know how stuff hasn’t been going well in the mayor’s office, and I haven’t been able to get to do the work I want to? Well, I was talking to one of the city councilwomen, and she has the most exciting idea on how we could campaign with this person running for congress about untying public school budgets from property tax to make it more equitable for the—”  
  
“Sorry, sorry,” Hawke said. “This all sounds so cool, and I am so happy for you, but there’s a bit of a situation here that needs defusing right now.”  
  
“Oh, sure,” Isabela said, surprised. “Well, do you need help? I can run over. Or if you want to talk about it—”  
  
“No!” Hawke said, too loudly.  
  
Isabela was quiet. “All right, then,” she said, “call me back when it’s sorted,” and hung up. Leaving Hawke feeling more miserable than before.  
  
She needed backup. Bethany had proven herself a loose cannon, so that meant Carver.  
  
“Coasters on wooden surfaces!” she barked at a pack of children who were much too young to be swilling beer and pretending to enjoy it like that. She spotted the closed door to the home office and, praying no one was hooking up in there, knocked.  
  
She was in luck. Carver shouted, “There’s no party in here!” through the door.  
  
“Carver, open this door or I swear—”  
  
“Maker!” Carver said. The door opened. Carver stared at her, wide-eyed, from behind a desk covered in chips, dip, and a whole watermelon.  
  
“What in the Creator’s name is happening!” Hawke said. “A small pool party! To help woo my hopeless crush! That was all I wanted! Why did you invite so many people?”  
  
“All I wanted was to eat the leftover pizza!” Carver said. “And I didn’t invite them, Bethy did! You dropped me off and they were all here, and I couldn’t find Bethy, so I hid.”  
  
“Did you check upstairs?” she said, and he shook his head.  
  
“There were some future frat boys doing a keg-stand on the landing. It wasn’t worth the risk.”  
  
“On the carpet?” Hawke said in horror. “Oh, hell no.”  
  
Carver was looking at her from the corner of his eye in a way that boded trouble. “So,” he said after a moment. “About this hopeless crush. Do you mean Merrill?”  
  
Hawke buried her head in her hands. “I will die,” she said. “Pretend I never said anything.”  
  
“Well, I like her,” Carver said, and she stared at him in horror. “Not that way, you pervert! I mean she’s nice. And she’s really smart about science and stuff. She helped me when I was studying for my summer class.”  
  
“I know she’s nice,” Hawke said miserably. “And smart, and hardworking, and talented. But she works for Mom. I would be an absolute creep to pull anything.”  
  
“Hmm, maybe,” Carver said. He was quiet. Then he said, “You know, Mom’s really proud of you. I know the whole, coming-out, sort of goth, computer science thing kind of threw her off. But she really likes you, and not just because you’re her kid. She thinks you’re good at explaining computer stuff without making her feel stupid, and she thinks you’re the only one who inherited Dad’s gift for telling a funny anecdote funny stories without it getting really long. And it took some getting used to for her, but she’s even okay with you being a lesbian now. She’s not just saying it. I actually saw her reading some article on gay rights the other day.”  
  
“Maker, Carver,” Hawke said, trying not to sniffle and not quite succeeding. “When did you get so nice?”  
  
He rolled his eyes. “I’m _not_ nice. Gah, get out.”  
  
It was a relief to yell at the kegstanders after that. It balanced the emotions. Whatever drink she’d taken from Anders earlier had dried her mouth out, so she confiscated the cans they hadn’t started on. It was so Makers-damned hot. The White Claw slid coldly down her throat.  
  
“All right,” she said, when the world felt more manageable. “Bethy.” She tripped going up the stairs, banging her hip on the sharp corner of the landing, and coming up short against Bethy’s door. Her hands rang against it.  
  
“Bethy!” she called, “Open up! There’s weird people in our house!”  
  
Silence. But Hawke had been an older sister long enough to tell the difference between the silence of absence and the silence of guilt, so she kept knocking, open-palmed strikes that stung her hands against the door. Her stomach was starting to hurt, in case this evening could get worse.  
  
“Bethy!” she said. “Mom’s going to come back and make me go to private school again, and it’s your fault! What… what have you to say for yourself?”  
  
“Go away!” Bethy said, not at all in the tone Hawke expected. She stopped knocking and stared up at Bethy’s door.  
  
“Bethy,” she said. “Are you crying? What’s wrong?”  
  
Silence for a moment longer. Then the door flung open, and Hawke had to put her arms out hurriedly for Bethy to crash into them. And it was as if the music turned off downstairs, the kegstanders faded into aether, the house itself disappeared, and all that mattered was Bethy crying on her shoulder.  
  
“Oh, Bethy,” she said, leading her back into the bedroom, perching beside her on the bed. “What happened?”  
  
“It’s this stupid party,” Bethy sobbed, tossing another used tissue onto the pile next to her bed. The floor was littered with them. “I i-i-invited everyone in class so I could invite _him_ , and he texted me to say that—” a shuddering breath “— the Maker frowns at my excess!”  
  
Well, that was not what Hawke expected. “Um— start over,” she said. “Invited who?”  
  
And the truth spilled out, with a lot more tears and the better part of a box of Kleenex. He was Sebastian, the new student in Bethany’s class, who every hot-blooded cis-man-attracted person in the entire school was seriously lusting after. But no one had succeeded in going out with him, as he was apparently— and Hawke made Bethany repeat this a few times before it stuck— massively, fundamentally religious, and scorned all earthly desires except, it seemed, telling people off for not being as holy as him. So Bethany had joined Chantry choir— she hadn’t been making that up after all, Hawke thought with a pang— and slowly grown to know him, had commandeered Hawke’s party with the sole intention of finally making a move on him— only for him to send a blistering, eight-paragraph, Chant of Light-citing diatribe on how much the Maker hated parties, drinking, and decadence of all kind, with a side helping of disgust at himself for believing that Bethany was any purer than the rest of those harlots at their school. Hawke read it in its entirety, growing slowly, helplessly, vengefully furious with each paragraph. And boy, were there a lot of paragraphs.  
  
She looked up at Bethy, who was covering her face with both hands but had stopped crying. And something about the moment made Hawke remember the night after the seventh-grade dance, when Ineria had gently told her she was an absolute catch but Ineria was straight, and it had felt like tripping up the stairs, or closing her hand in a door, or something pointless and painful that she couldn’t blame anyone but herself for. And she swallowed down the venom that had been gathering in her mouth.  
  
“Well, what a toxic waste of space those texts are,” she said, as lightly as she could. “And to be totally real with you, he doesn’t sound pious, he sounds like a massive incel.”  
  
Bethany snorted, leaking a few more tears.  
  
“I’m sorry he was so disappointing, Bethy,” Hawke said. “I know what it’s like for… for stuff to not work out, no matter how much you want it to. I— I want to check in— you do know that someone this deluded is not going to be debated out of his beliefs, right? Like, there’s no convincing him you’re”— she choked over the words, not impure— “or, anything like that. It’s just poison.”  
  
“I know,” Bethy said, sighing, as she took her phone back. “And I sort of knew the whole time that he, well, probably wasn’t going to like me once he got to know me. I just thought it would _take_ longer.”  
  
Hawke tucked Bethy’s hair behind her ear.  
  
“Well, he’s out of his Maker-damned mind,” she said. “Because you, little sis, are an absolute catch, and can do better than someone with prose that purple.”  
  
Bethy giggled. “At least I can quit fucking choir,” she said with feeling. “Our teacher said I sound like a crow.”  
  
“Well, it runs in the family,” Hawke said, watching her sister. She could feel herself sliding drowsily through tenderness into sappiness, but with the overhead light gathering shadows on Bethany’s face, it made her realize that Hawke wasn’t the only child who looked like Malcolm, and that made the world feel a little more comfortingly small.  
  
“I’m sorry about your party,” Bethy said. “I know you wanted it to be nice for Isabela. I sort of hijacked and ruined it.”  
  
“Oh— oh, fuck,” Hawke said. She sighed. “Listen, Bethy, I… I sort of made up the stuff about Bela’s half-birthday. I— wanted to throw this party to… impress a girl, actually.” She wondered if the floor would open and consume her. It would certainly be convenient.  
  
“Well,” Bethy said. “We’re both idiots, then. It must run in the family.” She squared her shoulders. “Want to go kick them out of our house?”  
  
“Yes,” Hawke said. “But I mean, really, it could have been worse. At least she didn’t show up.”  
  
She shouldn’t have dared the Maker like that. When she looked back at this evening in her clearer moments, she was pretty sure that was what did it. Because through some fluke of sound, the music faded just as the kegstanders must have smothered themselves silently with beer, and she heard, clear as a bell, the bird-like chirp of someone saying, “Sorry, excuse me? It’s getting late, could you turn the music down?”  
  
“Oh _no_ ,” Hawke said, and she must have bounded to her feet too fast, because the entire room was swaying, and she had to flail until Bethy caught her arm and steadied her.  
  
“Maker,” Bethany said. “Hawke, are you plastered?”  
  
“No!” Hawke said. “Got to go!” And she bolted from the room, almost slaying herself crashing down the stairs, stomach churning, palms sweating, feeling like she was moving too slowly in a nightmare as the future frat boys all turned to look at sweet, defenseless Merrill, who was wearing goofy elfroot PJ pants and had her arms folded uncomfortably.  
  
“Whoa!” the future frat boy by the stereo said, making no move to turn the sound down. “You’re Dalish!”  
  
“And you’re observant,” Merrill said unenthusiastically, then her grass-green eyes landed on Hawke. “Hawke!” she said, startled.  
  
“Merrill, I can explain!” Hawke said, and then the jumping up and running down the stairs and the horror of seeing Merrill meeting her sister’s friends caught up with her in one fell swoop. She just had time to think, _It’s the strawberry daiquiri all over again_ , before she threw up on Merrill’s shoes.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for emetophobia and references to alcohol.

Hawke could tell these were young kids who hadn’t been to many parties, because their desire to remain in her house was swiftly curtailed by someone throwing up. Or maybe it was Bethy saying in her best, most petty voice, “I will cut anyone who is still here by the time we get this cleaned up.” Probably both, she thought muzzily, as Merrill, after a small noise of disgust, helped her over to the sink to rinse her mouth out. It was still so hot, and so loud, as people started putting on their shoes and trying to organize Uber pools. She didn’t protest when Merrill’s hands stole around her arm and guided her down the stairs, into the darkness and coolness of the basement, through a door she hadn’t known about before, and into a little pool of light. As Merrill clattered around with a kettle on the stove, she gradually realized that this was Merrill’s kitchen, that she was in Merrill’s apartment.  
  
At least the poison seemed to be gone from her body, she thought dismally, but that meant she was completely clear-headed in her humiliation as Merrill sat her down and started making some soothing peppermint tea.  
  
“I am so sorry about your shoes,” she said, in perfect and complete mortification. “Any chance of, er… salvaging them?”  
  
“I think they’ll be fine, once I give them a good rinse-off,” Merrill said. “Didn’t have much to eat today, did you?”  
  
“No,” Hawke said sheepishly. “Not since breakfast, anyway. I was too busy with the—” party, ugh.  
  
“You must be famished!” Merrill said, brow furrowing. “Here, let me make you something easy on your stomach.”  
  
“You can’t feed me!” Hawke said, peculiarly distressed in a way she couldn’t articulate.  
  
Merrill raised an eyebrow. “Would you rather go upstairs, then?”  
  
Well. Fair point.  
  
Even though she felt creepy and definitely like she was taking advantage of Merrill’s hospitality, Hawke couldn’t help from glancing around Merrill’s apartment. It was bigger than she thought it might be. There was a kitchen, and a modest living room, and the sliver of bedroom beyond a door. It was very pretty, she thought with a pang. She could tell Leandra had furnished it, but all the in-between pieces were Merrill— the big cat calendar, the stack of Miyazaki DVDs next to the TV, the house plants. It was nice, she thought, and she couldn’t tell if it was the still slightly drunken sense of melancholy that made her throat almost close with grief at seeing it. It was so nice. She wanted to know this person, but somehow she had thrown up on their shoes instead.  
  
“That should do it,” Merrill said, setting a warmed-up bowl of chicken broth and two pieces of white toast in front of her. “Tell me if you start to feel sick again.”  
  
“I think that was it,” she said, embarrassed. “I only had two White Claws.” Merrill didn’t laugh or anything when she said this, so she ventured to say, “I— I actually don’t drink very much. Er— not at all, really.”  
  
“Neither do I,” Merrill said, surprising her. “There’s no story behind it, and no particular reason. I just don’t like the taste, or the way I feel afterward. Don’t get me wrong; I have nothing against parties. I would always just rather hang out somewhere I could talk to my friends, or watch a movie with them, or something quiet.”  
  
“Yeah,” Hawke said, feeling even more miserable. “I know what you mean.”  
  
“That’s why I liked you and Isabela, as soon as I met you,” Merrill said, and Hawke looked up in surprise. “The way you could just talk for hours, or sit together in silence. You’re really close, aren’t you?”  
  
“Yeah,” Hawke said. “We really are. I’ve known her since I was born. We’re going to live together when we start college.”  
  
“That sounds nice,” Merrill said.  
  
“Yeah,” Hawke said. “Yeah, it really is.”  
  
She sat there at Merrill’s kitchen table, gazing fixedly at the swirls in the wood grain. And maybe it was the White Claw, but some feeling rose up in her, that the world was too unbearably beautiful and awful sometimes, and she was too careless, and it was too fragile, and she did not deserve any of what she had been given. She could feel the press of words on her tongue, of the ways she might try to tell Merrill, to see if she understood, but she could not.  
  
She looked down at the empty plate and bowl. “Can I wash these for you?”  
  
“Nope!” Merrill said, grabbing them. “There’s a little dishwasher, see? It’s my favorite part of the kitchen.”  
  
“Then I should be going to bed,” Hawke said in a rustling voice. “Thank you for, for all of this. Sorry, again.”  
  
“Don’t thank me too much,” Merrill said, as Hawke pulled the basement door closed behind her. “You’re still going to feel rotten in the morning.”  
  
The house was dark and empty when she came up. She could hear Bethy and Carver talking in low voices in the kitchen— she wondered which of them had been stuck with cleaning up, and winced— but she couldn’t bear to talk to them right now. All she could bear to do was slide up the stairs to brush her teeth, then creep under her sheets without turning any of the lights on. The sheets were cool and soft against her skin.  
  
She lay there for a moment, almost too heavy to sleep. Then, floundering through her sheets, her hand connected with something hard. Her phone. It took less than a thought to dial the number.  
  
“Hawke?” Isabela said. Her voice was muzzy with sleep. Hawke must have woken her. “Hawke, what’s wrong?”  
  
Hawke didn’t know what to say, so she said, “Isabela.” And then she started to cry. She felt heavier than lead, wrapped in her sheets, tears sliding soundlessly into the hair at her temples. But somehow Isabela could still tell, because she could always tell.  
  
“Oh, Hawke!” Isabela said. She could hear the rustle of sheets as she sat up. “Oh, baby, what happened? Tell me everything.”  
  
So Hawke closed her eyes and told her.


	6. Chapter 6

Isabela was there when she woke up, and so was the trash can. It was a morning of many blessings.  
  
“And that will teach you to ever drink the poison they serve at frat parties again,” Isabela said. “I hate to say _I told you so_ , but do you know how many empty White Claws I passed on the way up?”  
  
“Do not even speak that cursed name,” Hawke groaned, flopping back in bed. Someone, probably Isabela, had placed a glass of water on her nightstand, and nothing in the world was as important as the way the cool water felt sliding down her throat. “Maybe I’m not cut out for college,” she said when it was empty. “I don’t think I could handle ever doing that again.”  
  
“I’m sure you’ll be too busy making friends with your professors to drink,” Isabela said. “Here.” She slid a cup of something despicable-looking across the bedside table.  
  
“Do I even want to know what this is?” Hawke said, frowning at the smell.  
  
“Nope,” Isabela said. “Drink up.”  
  
So Hawke did, making a face. It tasted like the water at the bottom of Merrill’s plant-waste container. Nor was it the sort of thing that made her feel instantly better once she drank it. She still felt hungover, and now her mouth tasted like grass.  
  
“Now,” Isabela said, “let’s talk about that display you put on last night. You threw a party, and you didn’t even invite me?”  
  
Well, now Hawke felt even more wretched. “You would have talked me out of it,” she said, lying back on her pillow. A sliver of open window let in a taste of the cool morning breeze. She wanted to be outside, out in the living air, or driving down to the sea to let the salt water curl against her skin. Not here in her sweaty sheets and aching head. “Bethy and Carver I could convince, but you’ve always seen through me like glass. And… I knew it wasn’t a good idea. But I wanted to fool myself a little longer.”  
  
Isabela sat there at her bedside, forehead creased. “You say I see you better than anyone, but I’m feeling like an idiot,” she said at last. “If I saw you as well as that, if I hadn’t gotten so caught up in this internship, I would have seen that you were lonely.”  
  
“Bullshit,” Hawke said, as clearly as she could. “Your internship is really important, to you and the whole city. You’re not my babysitter, and I don’t ever want you to feel like you have to be here to keep me from making stupid choices. And…” and now she had to look away, twisting her neck to stare at the sky again. “I don’t think it’s the type of loneliness that’s improved by anyone else knowing about it.”  
  
Isabela was quiet in her chair. The morning air stirred a breath of her hair.  
  
“I don’t know why I’m lonely,” Hawke said. “When there are so many people who love me. I don’t know why I’m so greedy for one more.”  
  
“Oh, Hawke,” Bela said. “You’re getting too big for the suburbs, baby. College will be different. At the very least it won’t be here.”  
  
Hawke smiled up at her. “But I’m being foolish,” she said. “You’re working for a new city councilor? Which one? What’s she like? How did it happen?”  
  
And that spent a handful of happy hours.

They were both dozing in her bed as the sunlight lengthened toward noon and the air from the open window grew hot rather than cool.  
  
“You know,” Hawke said drowsily, “I’m going to have to clean every inch of this house before Mom gets back tonight.”  
  
“Well,” Bela said, curled up beside her, “good thing I brought so many of our favorite summer rom-coms.” And Hawke felt almost cheerful before Bela said, “I’ll need something to watch while you clean.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s fair,” Hawke said, snorting into her pillow. She went quiet again. “I don’t even know how I’m going to apologize to Merrill.”  
  
She heard a rustle as Isabela sat up.  
  
“You made a mistake, Hawke,” she said. “You decided not to ask her out, then manufactured a very date-like scenario without telling her, which is weird. But aside from your pride, and that ghastly carpet, you don’t seem to have hurt anyone irreparably.”  
  
“And her shoes,” Hawke said miserably.  
  
Isabela shrugged. “Then buy her new shoes.”  
  
That wasn’t quite right. But suddenly, Hawke knew what was.

* * *

She was lucky that Bethy and Carver took pity on her, because it was only with their help— and eventually Isabela’s, when time really started to run down— that the house was more or less restored to its immaculate condition before Leandra returned. Merrill was even kind enough to bring in the empty cans that had apparently made their way into the pool and garden, which was a special sort of agony Hawke hoped she would never have to experience again. They spoke briefly; Hawke could not remember what was said, although she was certain she apologized, several more times. Each one felt like dropping stones into a pool: disturbing Merrill’s peace but changing nothing.  
  
“Thank you again,” Hawke said to Isabela, as she walked her to her car. “For just a lot of things, and more specifically for everything.”  
  
“You’ll find some way to repay me,” Bela said with a grin. “And then I’ll repay you, and so on and so forth again, for the rest of our lives.” She ducked into her car but didn’t close the door. “Have you forgotten what day it is, by the way?”  
  
Certainly not her birthday, as was well established by that point. “Sunday?” Hawke guessed; even on this point she was not entirely sure.  
  
“Yes!” Bela said, pointing at her. “Sunday! Which means we move into the new place in seven days!”  
  
“Maker,” Hawke said. “How is it that soon already?” She rubbed her face. “Is it strange that I’m nervous?”  
  
“Not very,” Bela said. “I love you, Hawke, but you’re not someone who’s good at distinguishing between nervousness and excitement.” She went quiet. “Speaking of, have you thought about what you’re going to do with Merrill?”  
  
“Yes,” Hawke said. “But it’s the sort of thing where I’m definitely going to lose my courage as soon as I tell someone. So if it’s all right with you, how about I call you tomorrow and tell you about it?”  
  
“Baby’s all grown up,” Bela said with a grin. “I look forward to it.”  
  
It was only a few minutes later that Leandra pulled up, too. Enough time for Hawke to go back inside, write a few sentences on the good house stationary, and slide it under Merrill’s door. Maybe a mistake, she thought. But certainly no less than nothing.  
  
“I have one more favor to ask,” she said to Bethany, as she and her siblings stood on the porch and watched Leandra laboriously pull into the garage.  
  
“I cleaned up your vomit yesterday,” Bethany whispered back. “Explain to me in what universe I owe you anything.”  
  
Hawke thought about pointing out that the White Claws were only there because Bethany had hijacked her party but decided against it.  
  
“Out of the goodness of your heart, then,” she said. “Out of pity for your poor single sister.”  
  
 _That_ got Bethy’s attention. “What’s the favor?” she said. “Before I decide anything.”  
  
“Tell Mom that you and Carver want to take her out to dinner,” Hawke said. “And that I had a headache all day, so I’ll be staying home.”  
  
Bethy was probably a better sister than Hawke gave her credit for, because there was only the ghost of a grin on her face when she said, “Yeah, I can do that. We’ll take her to Chili’s and convince her to get a margarita. That’ll take her out of commission for the rest of the night.”  
  
“I owe you one,” Hawke said. “I owe you several hundred.”  
  
“You can repay me by letting me use your new apartment for parties,” Bethy said, as Carver went down to help Leandra carry in her bags.  
  
“Maker,” Hawke said. “Fine, but I’m not drinking at them. And you aren’t inviting that nasty Chantry boy.”  
  
“Deal,” Bethy said, and they shook on it.

* * *

The house was quiet, once the twins had whisked Leandra away. It was nice to stand in the cool kitchen and pull out the leftover pizza, cut into the watermelon that had eventually made its way into the kitchen, rescue the chips from the office, and dig out the dips from the fridge. Hawke dressed in her swimsuit nervously, wondering if the black made her peaky, but if Merrill didn’t like it, it was already hopeless, because that was all she had seen Hawke in, every day of the summer.  
  
Finding herself with a few minutes to kill, trying to distract herself from her own anxiety, Hawke made a jug of lemonade, and then that was all she could do. Carefully, she carried the dishes out to the table by the pool. It was a mild evening, the concrete of the courtyard still holding some of the day’s warmth. But the breeze was pure garden, all mint and roses and grass clippings. Twilight was descending in turquoise light, and the lights in the pool sent flickering patterns of water across the side of of the house, over the food on the table.  
  
“Hawke?” Merrill said from behind her. Hawke twisted to see her standing uncertainly at the garden gate. She was dressed in a swimsuit, too, a one-piece that made Hawke wonder if Merrill swamp laps in her nonexistent free time, or if she had spent summers diving off cliffs somewhere, swimming down to greet the little creatures at the bottom of rivers.  
  
“Merrill,” she said, almost startled, but not sure by what. “Hi.”  
  
“Hello,” Merrill said, a little awkwardly. “What’s all this, then?”  
  
“A do-over,” Hawke said, before she could lose her courage. “I promised you a pool party and spectacularly failed to deliver. So, I thought the least I could do was give you a party you might actually enjoy.”  
  
She was glad she was sitting down when a smile broke out on Merrill’s face. “This is lovely!” she said, taking the seat across from Hawke. “There’s nothing like a full watermelon in summer. It reminds me of being a girl with my clan.”  
  
“Did you grow watermelon?” Hawke said, and Merrill was off. Hawke settled back in her chair and smiled, listening and asking questions and getting amused at the finer points of vegetable gardening and soil acidity. She didn’t fully understand everything that was said, but Merrill was a good teacher, and Hawke didn’t need to know how soil pH effected plant growth to know that Merrill loved this, that she thought about this a lot, that someday other gardeners were going to know her name, if they didn’t already.  
  
“But I’m sorry,” Merrill said, catching herself. “I’ve been talking about plants a lot, haven’t I?” And she said it in a way that made Hawke think that someone had made her feel weird about this before, that Merrill too understood what it was like to edit yourself, to dilute your passions into something that other people found consumable. And she wanted to tell Merrill that she hated that, and she knew how it felt. But then she wanted to tell her something else entirely.  
  
“Hey,” Hawke said. This was the hard part, the part her throat kept trying to close around. But she was tired of hinting and calculating. It was fun in movies, but it only stressed her out. And she thought Merrill was probably too smart for it, anyway. “This is probably pretty obvious at this point in the game, but, um, I like you. And no pressure at all, because I know you work for my mom and stuff, and it could potentially be weird, but would you like to go on a date?”  
  
“A second date, you mean?” Merrill said, grinning, and Hawke went weak with relief. “I’d assumed this was the first.”  
  
“I guess it was,” Hawke said, and now she was smiling, and Merrill was smiling, too. “So a second date, then? I should tell you, I’ve never seen a Miyazaki film, and I am ashamed.”  
  
“Luckily for you I own the complete collection,” Merrill said. “DVD _and_ Blu-Ray. I’d say we should watch it right now, but I really am dying to try out the pool.”  
  
Warm was too generous a term for the water, but it was at least bearable; and there was something fun about shrieking at the coldness and splashing each other. It wasn’t glamorous, or cinematic; the camera didn’t pan out as they kissed, the way it did in the movies. But Merrill was asking her about computers, and Hawke was already thinking of a meme about soil pH she wanted to make for her. And she thought she liked it better this way, after all.


	7. Chapter 7

“Watermelon!” Merrill said triumphantly, setting the bowl of cut fruit down on the table. Ikea hadn’t delivered their actual kitchen table yet, so this was a foldable one Hawke snagged from some corner of the garage. As it groaned ominously under the weight of smoked barbecue, mac and cheese, salad, and the watermelon, Hawke hoped to the Maker and whoever else was listening that she had set it up correctly, and that it wouldn’t collapse during the meal.  
  
“Maker, Merrill, how did you even grow this?” Hawke said, only half-listening as she rinsed off the chives to chop into the salad. There was no answer, until Merrill was standing behind her, hands reaching out to help. She laid the lightest kiss against the back of Hawke’s neck, right beneath her fringe of dark hair, which never failed to make Hawke shiver and Merrill laugh.  
  
“Focus!” Hawke said, trying to gather her thoughts. “Mom’s going to be here any second, and we need to make this place look habitable by then!”  
  
“I told her she should have let me park the car,” Merrill said, peering out the window at the alley-like streets. “She’s not good at it. It’s been ages.”  
  
“She’s fine,” Hawke said. “What she lacks in ability to reliably back up a car, she makes up for in the number of decades she’s spent in the city. She’ll find some secret lot somewhere and be here in a minute.”  
  
She hoped that was true. It occurred to her, as she convinced the freezer to spit out ice for the sweet tea, that Kirkwall must have changed a lot since Leandra was born. These suburbs and the photogenic downtown had sprung up from worn-down docks, the wreck of ancient houses and the ghosts of the city’s inhabitants. She wondered if the city was strange to Leandra now, or if she could still see the bones beneath. Or if she wondered about this at all.  
  
She did not ask when Leandra arrived, a flush in her cheeks from the heat of the day or the fervor of parking. “Oh, this isn’t bad at all!” she said, while Hawke and Isabela took her reusable grocery bags— Maker, how much food had she brought? “The sunlight is good, and I think these floors are real wood. Mother’s furniture looks just darling in the living room, and— oh, Hawke, what is this wretched table? You can’t eat breakfast and do homework on it for four years!”  
  
Bethany and Carver came only a few minutes later, having had much more luck parking. They didn’t bring food, but Bethy had roses, and it was worth it just to see her face light up as she gazed around their apartment. Hawke could see the dreams in her face, the Pinterest boards she would start, for a space in the city of her own. She was glad to be distracted by Isabela clearing her throat and gesturing toward the table.  
  
“Let’s eat!” Hawke said. “Um, maybe a toast first?”  
  
They raised their glasses of the sparkling cider Leandra had brought, sitting at the table around the food, at what was certainly one of the better parties Hawke had thrown. Her brother, her sister, her mother. Her girlfriend. Her best friend. It was a lot. And as they turned to look at her for the toast, Hawke realized she had no idea what to say. It was too big for words. She didn’t know how to make it any smaller. She didn’t know if she wanted to.  
  
“I guess,” she said, “that I am very happy,” and her mother smiled, and Hawke thought that was probably enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it. Thank you all for reading!


End file.
